LONDON — As foreign secretary, Jack Straw was the quintessential British diplomat, sliding smoothly between the world's trouble spots, a judicious word here, a deferential nod there, rarely forgetting his lawyer's training - in public at least - by misspeaking or failing to observe the sensitivities of hosts from Teheran to Washington.

This time, his words have been anything but diplomatic.

In a remarkable series of utterances, Straw, still a high-ranking member of the British government, has urged Muslim women who wear a full veil to remove it when they talk to him in his constituency office in northwestern England. The veil, he wrote in his local newspaper, the Lancashire Telegraph, is "such a visible statement of separation and of difference" as to jeopardize social harmony.

His remarks have ignited a furious debate evoking questions of political correctness and religious identity. The discussion does not have quite the same incendiary prominence as Pope Benedict XVI's recent comments on Islam, or as the publication of cartoons of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed in European newspapers in February. But it has provoked some of the same sense of a collision of values and perceptions.

It was in his constituency office in Blackburn, Lancashire, Straw wrote in the article, that he began to ruminate a year ago on the question of the veil - known as the niqab - and whether it damaged relationships between individuals and among people of different ethnic backgrounds.

"There is a wider issue here," Straw said in an interview on the BBC on Friday. "Communities are bound together partly by informal chance relations between strangers - people being able to acknowledge each other in the street or being able pass the time of day. That's made more difficult if people are wearing a veil. That's just a fact of life."

He continued: "I come to this out of a profound commitment to equal rights for Muslim communities and an equal concern about adverse development, about parallel communities."

Asked if he would support the idea of the full veil's being abandoned altogether, he said: "Yes. It needs to be made clear I am not talking about being prescriptive but, with all the caveats, yes, I would rather."

After the London transport bombings of July 7, 2005, and concerns about home-grown terrorism, the debate has erupted at a time when Britain is fretting over the status of its 1.6 million Muslim minority whose representatives complaint frequently of discrimination.

The protestations were amplified just weeks ago, when John Reid, the home secretary, urged Muslims to watch their children for the "telltale signs" of radicalism, prompting some to say that the government was trying to persuade people to spy on their offspring.

Nazreen Nawaz, a spokeswoman for Hizb ut-Tahrir, a group that says it seeks pan-Islamic rule through peaceful means, said: "The Muslim community does not need lessons in dress from Jack Straw, any more than it needs lessons in parenting from John Reid." Her remarks were part of a chorus of vehement protests from Islamic groups on Friday.

Straw won some allies. "The veil does cause some discomfort to non- Muslims," said Daud Abdullah, an official of the Muslim Council of Britain. "One can understand this."

Hazel Blears, member of Parliament and senior Labor Party official, defended Straw, saying there should be a broader discussion with "views from all sections of the community."

But Prime Minister Tony Blair distanced himself, saying through a spokesman that Straw's decision to make the remarks "does not make it government policy."

The question of the veil has divided opinion in several countries of Europe, including France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

In Turkey, which has been secular for more than 80 years, the Islamic head- scarf has become an emblem of profound social strains.

In Britain, though, Straw's remark highlighted the increasing worries among public officials that Britain's 40- year-old policy of multiculturalism - protecting each minority's right to its distinctive languages and customs - has faltered, fostering division and social dislocation.

This week, for instance, David Cameron, leader of the opposition Conservatives, bemoaned at his party's annual conference the existence of "communities where people from different ethnic origins never meet, never talk, never go into each others' homes."

The police in Windsor, west of London, moreover, reported Thursday that a dairy owned by a Muslim businessman had been attacked by non-Muslims who were protesting a plan to build an Islamic center in the town.

Straw said that he had raised the issue - first with women in his constituency office and then publicly - because he felt uncomfortable if he could not see an interlocutor's face.

But his comments raised suspicions that, as politicians jostle for high office, they are competing, in the words of the maverick legislator George Galloway, "to grab the headlines as the hammer of the Muslims."